Virtuality
by GoddessCat
Summary: "CALIBRATION COMPLETE. WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST SYNTHETIC EXPERIENCE: KARKAT VANTAS."
1. Space Station Sough

((there are some dodgy POV jumps sometimes and i'm sorry for that, i'm trying not to use the arrow, but if you'd like me to use bold or something to differentiate drop me a comment and say so and i'll edit it))

((go to Tumblr "goddesscat" and go to my AU link "/aus" for a quick breakdown of this AU and to see Character Bios "/vraubios"))

**_Hourly Analysis_**

**_Space Station: Sough - Hour #7_**

**_Temperature=23°C – Day Cycle=Stage 2/4 –Station Integrity=89.236%_**  
-

A young Troll is on his way to his Hive. It just so happens that today, Day #12, Month #5, Year #202, is the day that this young Troll was fired from his place of work. Though it was only 2 months ago he was given the job, this is not his fastest record for losing employment.

For Convenient reference, the space station Sough's years are three hundred days long. These years break down into a week being ten days, a month being three weeks, a year being ten months and each day is thirty hours long.

These numbers are slightly similar to those of a Planet in close proximity of Sough called Earth, which is inhabited by a species called Humans. This is because, four centuries ago the inhabitants of Earth decided to build Space stations for their growing populace, for ease of understanding they kept close to their original date system.

Three centuries ago Earth created an Alliance with Alternia, a planet in the same Solar system, inhabited by a species called Trolls, and in the last two centuries Trolls have been cohabiting with Humans on some of these Space Stations.

You already know all of this though, as you've been living on Sough for your entire life, which is nearly nineteen and a half years, this roughly translates to seven and a half Alternian sweeps, or 16 Earth years.

Your name is Karkat Vantas. As was previously mentioned, you were fired today, which isn't so bad because your job was boring as fuck. You suppose you didn't need to tell your employer this to his face, but he seemed completely oblivious and somebody had to tell him.

You start to wonder why you bother, every resident of the Space station is free to live here indefinitely, the Immigration System pays for accommodation, food and necessities, but having a job means you can buy luxuries. One of the things you want money to spend on is movies, you have an assorted taste in cinema, but mostly you like Troll Romance movies and Romcoms, there are also a few Human Romance movies you're not too repulsed by, but you really don't like Human/Troll Romance movies, Humans never did grasp the concept of quadrants in all this time.

Recently your best friend has been trying to get you to buy a VR Rig so you can play Virtual Reality games, you haven't even tried his, there's something unnerving about it, but admittedly you want to try it out. You fill your spare time playing a video game called SBUR;B on your computer, you're not very good at it but that isn't the point of the game, you're not really sure what the point is, usually you just keep finding items in treasure chests that tell you to go and play another game, SGR;UB. Your best friend plays this a lot, but you can only play it in Virtual Reality, you can also play SBUR;B in Virtual Reality if you have the VR Rig, you tell yourself you will buy one eventually.

You have what you would describe as a large circle of friends, most of which play SBUR;B, and a handful play SGR;UB. Your SBUR;B account name is carcinoGeneticist, you didn't choose it, the game apparently has some kind of random name generator based on your psychological readouts which makes no sense because you never let your computer scan you, and that name just doesn't translate anything, similarly the game makes you type IN ALL CAPS AND YOU CAN'T TURN IT OFF, IT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU'RE YELLING ALL THE TIME, WHICH IS WRONG BECAUSE YOU ONLY YELL MOST OF THE TIME, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

Later, you will make friends with a Human, if somebody were to tell you this now, you wouldn't believe them. You don't hate Humans; you just don't make an effort to converse with them, what's the point? You're on opposite sides of the Space Station.

You suddenly become aware that you've gone completely the wrong way back to your Hive, you got so caught up thinking about benign things that you've been wandering in a residential sector about a 30 minute walk from your own. You go and find a bench and sit down, you're not in the mood to walk back to your Hive right now anyway.

So, what will you do now?

You suppose you could message your best friend to pass some time.

KV: hey, you are never going to guess what happened to me today.  
SC: you got fired.  
KV:how the fuck did you know that?  
SC:okay dude seriously, that is a joke i make every other day.  
SC:you didnt really get fired again did you?  
KV:yes i did.  
KV:my boss was such a grubfucking imbecile i would rather scoop out my own internal organs with an oxidised eating utensil and serve them up to the horrorterrors on a golden nutrition plateau than stay there another minute.  
SC:wow KK.  
SC:you dont need to do this shit to yourself you know.  
KV:it is unbearably monotonous just sitting around in my hive all day sollux, not all of us are graced with the joys of being able to sit around for days on end playing the same stupid game over and over again for years and not get bored of it.  
SC:yeah well i get paid to do this.  
KV:fuck you okay, fuck you and the high hoofbeast you rode in on.  
SC:eheh, sure whatever.  
SC:you want to come over?  
KV:why the fuck not.

Well at least you have something to do now, it would've been boring back at your empty Hive, you haven't had your Lusus to keep you company for a while now, it seems like so long ago it's hard to remember how long it's really been. You miss him, but he's off caring for a new grub somewhere.

You head to the nearest Shuttle station, you'll take one of the public transportation vehicles to Sollux' Hive, it's way too far to walk. You decide to get something to read on your journey, it's only a 30 minute ride, but you get bored easily.

You pick up the latest issue of Game Grub, you haven't read it in a while, copyright is so tight on Sough that there aren't many games to play and they usually end up reviewing the same game over and over again. This issue has "An Exclusive Look at the Biggest Games in the History of Gaming" written on the cover.

You board the shuttle, find a seat, and flick through a few pages. They have reviews for SBUR;B and SGR;UB in here, you give them a read.

-  
_Synthetic Basic Use Reality; Brainteaser_ _more popularly known as SBURB, is a non-competitive puzzle game you can play on your own or with friends, you are faced with a Planet in which there are many challenges for you to solve! you can choose to complete the puzzles without a time limit in Casual Mode or you can set the game to Challenge Mode and see how high you can get your Completion Percentage before the time's up!_

"i think this game is amazing! the environment! the quests! Recently Skaianet took this game into Virtual Reality! and they did a really good job with it! it is fully immersive! and i could spend all day on here!" - Cestus Crisna. 20, Troll it Gaming.

_Synthetic Gaming Reality; Unified-Battle_ _more popularly known as SGRUB, is a game where 2 teams of 1-5 players use tactics and advantages to battle it out with their favourite weapons and powers. Highest score at the end of the time limit wins!_

"Seriously anyone who hasn't played SGR;UB must not be functioning on basic mental faculties. I cannot comprehend how there even ARE people out there who haven't played this. I shouldn't need to tell you how good this is just play it.

Trust me you will not regret it." _- Abroni Anrare. 32, Alternifuckit Gamerstation._

**Synthetic Gaming Reality; Unified-Battle© Synthetic Basic Use Reality; Brainteaser© Skaianet Laboratories™ 200-215**

That wasn't exclusive at all, you've probably read that stuff a million times in the last two years, they just got some random people to gush out some generic praise, was that last one even a review? Wow, some people are morons. Before you realise it, you're at your stop and exiting the vehicle.

Sollux lives in the more expensive district of the Space Station, there isn't really anything wrong with living in the free areas of course, there are practically no crimes in any of the residential districts and everyone is pretty nice, it's sickening how awesome a place Sough is to live. You've heard rumours about Alternia, even now it's a horrible place to be. In Sough everything is run with the Human's ideals, so grubs don't get put through the kinds of things that you've heard about. It's probably just all lies though, because seriously, who puts grubs through tests to see which ones will survive?

When you get to Sollux' Hive you knock at his entry portal and he takes ages to answer, it would be so much easier if he just had some kind of telekinesis or something, how awesome would that be?

Alas, your best friend is not some super powered mutant or the like, he's just a normal Troll like you. This doesn't strike you as strange in the slightest, why would it? He's always just been: Sollux Captor, general nerd and one of 5 original Beta Testers for, and in the last 6 months sponsored player of, SGR;UB. A game which he still plays religiously after two years.

A game which you have never played, but by the time the Space Station's Artificial Night Filter kicks in, you will have.

You and Sollux end up spending an entire hour discussing movie decisions, you finally compromise and watch a new film neither of you has seen before, it's about an alien race that depend on underground rodents to save them from a less intelligent species of flying reptilian creatures, and it sounds terrible.

Oh god it's worse than it sounded. This cannot even be legal it is so panrottingly awful, you're only ten minutes in and you think your ganderbulbs have already melted out of your ocular sockets.

You watch the whole film anyway.

"Wow." That's about all you can say.

"Yeah, if anyone asks if we've seen it, we deny everything", Sollux says, you nod in agreement. Sollux yawns, you remember him saying something about having to play a bunch of SGR;UB matches for his sponsors from Hour #1 yesterday, which is a stupid time for anyone to be up in general, but 30 hours and then some?

"Dude if you want to go to sleep i'm not going to hold it against you, you look fucking wrecked, how long have you even been awake?"

He looks at you, tilts his head and starts counting on his fingers, he stops, "what day is it?"

"Go to fucking sleep."

Sollux tells you to stay at his Hive, it's not late by any margin, it's only Hour #12, there's still another 6 hours until the Artificial Night Filter kicks in and then after another two hours of gradual darkening it'll be night time and there won't be any light outside apart from the street ambients.

Sleeping in the night and being awake during the day don't phase you at all, it's not like you were born on Alternia, centuries of evolution means that every Troll on the Space Stations are used to it, the only ones that aren't are the ones that came straight from Alternia itself and are still adapting, but Sough doesn't have any of those.

Sollux tells you that your normal room is still how you left it, and you appreciate that because that room is amazing, he's offered for you to stay with him on a more permanent arrangement, but something about that just makes you feel like a mooching asshole and you can't. Besides, sometimes Sollux can honestly drive you up the vertical structural surface. All that, and for a Troll to share a Hive with someone they have to register in a quadrant and you're not in one. Whether that was Sollux' subtle way of asking you to be his Moirail you couldn't tell, but he never mentioned it again, just said 'the offer's always open' and left it at that.

He goes to his respiteblock and you head for his computer, he's told you all his passwords because when you stay over it's pretty much your computer, he can do everything he wants from his VR Rig.

Speaking of VR Rig, you notice as you enter his main entertainment block that he's left it turned on, you stare at it for a few moments, you consider it.

You've always had a sort of fear of Virtual Reality Rigs, you're not even sure why because they've been flawless and there haven't been any general accidents for the last few hundred years – however that translates when you consider where all the technology comes from –usually Trolls have Alternian Rigs, and Humans have Earth Rigs, as a Troll, you can't use Earth Rigs and vice versa, you don't get why not, it's just how things work.

Sollux has some really expensive (and probably modified) hybrid of both, he lives near the middle of the Station, here the Troll and Human sides merge and you're half as likely to have a Human Neighbour as a Troll one. You wonder if he got it so he can have Humans over and play with them, he's never mentioned it to you before. It's probably just that it was the most expensive one and he wants to be able to brag.

You sit in one of the two chairs he has setup in front of the Rig, it looks bigger now that you're sat in front of it. The metal parts are silver, most Rigs are just black but this is Sollux, he always feels the need to make an impression, it has a huge, grey tinted, square screen that takes up half the height of the wall, you haven't actually watched him play before, but you remember him saying that you can see what he sees on the screen, but he can't see it for some reason, that weirds you out a little.

There's two shiny columns either side of the screen built into the wall that go from floor to ceiling, this is where the 4 multiplayer headset hangers are located, each headset is the same, but the bands that keep them around your head are different colours: red, blue, yellow, purple and green, just generic colours. The headsets are simple looking, just thick loose elastic with a buckle to tighten them, two little flap type things that hang down and attach to your temples and read your brain waves. You're surprised really, you've seen some pretty elaborate Headsets advertised online, you thought Sollux would have something showy.

The headsets are wireless but you have no idea of the range on them.

You know he has all 5 headsets, but he only ever has his the random red one out on the bottom most peg on the left column, and the main yellow headset hanging on the front panel of the unit in front of the Rig sticking up out of floor, this bit you've never really looked at before, it has a few buttons on it, some lit up, two flashing, all different colours with Alternian words lit up on all of them in white or black to stand out.

One of them is lit up in red, 'Power'. That would obviously be the button to turn it off. You think about pressing it, but Sollux has said before you can use the Rig if you want to, you should probably wait for him to set it up for you and show you how to use it, but the sudden impulse to pick up that headset is overwhelming, perhaps you could.

You pick up the yellow headset.


	2. The Virtual Reality Rig

You stretch the elastic and fit it around your head, pull at the buckle until it fits snugly, then you press those stupid little flaps down onto your temples, they don't really stay and you're not sure how to make them, you press them both down again and one of the lights on the podium flashes on, it says 'CALIBRATION', you press it, there's a suction noise and you feel the headband tightening and a tingly sensation at your temples.

There's a buzzing noise, gradually getting louder, it starts sounding like really loud vibrating, but you can only feel it in your toes.

You've never used a VR rig before, what if something goes wrong? You really should've waited for Sollux to show you how to do this. Hell you shouldn't even be touching it, he didn't exactly give you permission to, any time he's asked if you wanted to use it he's basically asked if you wanted to play with him, but it's not even Hour #13 yet and you've been drinking fizzy drinks because Sollux doesn't own anything else aside from tap water, and drinking from taps is such a Human thing to do.

Everything is slowly blinking, each flash your surroundings seem to get darker, is everything going to go pitch black? Will you still be able to feel anything? What if Sollux wakes up and gets mad at you for using his Rig and plays a trick on you? What if you lose contact with your body and it forgets how to breathe? You think you might be panicking a little.

You wonder if you had just turned it off and ignored it if you would have been saved all these dramatics, but you're pretty sure you would have ended up on here anyway, you've always been curious, and obviously it's not dangerous because Sollux uses it all the time.

The blinking stops but everything stays quite dark, and you vision goes sparkly green around the edges then it starts to envelop your senses. It's hard to describe what green static tastes like, but you find yourself trying to as you feel it. It doesn't taste like anything, other than green. How do you describe how green tastes?

Before you can spend too long thinking about that though, you find yourself wondering if they all Rigs do this, or if they do different things, this one does belong to your best friend, who's obsessed with hacking, there's every chance this thing is juiced to fuck and back, and normally they might just fade into black subtly. Does it really matter?

Your vision has melted into complete black, not even the normal flickering light behind your eyelids when you close your eyes, absolute emptiness. It's like staring into an abyss, but even darker than that. There are no sounds anymore and you actually start to feel a little uneasy with Vertigo as your limbs start to go numb.

You feel, uneasily peaceful. Like you imagine you would feel if you were forced under anaesthetic.

It starts feeling kind of nice, and as you start to relax you are actually a little disappointed when you see White all-caps text flashing before you, slowly fading into focus, "CALIBRATION COMPLETE. WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST SYNTHETIC EXPERIENCE: KARKAT VANTAS." Oh, it knows your name, and that this is your first time. Well you knew they could read your brain waves, that's how they work; you just didn't know that it would know things like that.

If it can read you like this then there must be a history folder, or whatever you call it on one of these things, that means that Sollux is going to know you've been on here, even if there wasn't a history thing you think he would know anyway, he doesn't even have to be good with technology to tell.

Well, you might as well make the most of using this thing now that you're on here.

The screen has gone completely White – wait no that's not right, there's no screen, it's just you're not sure what else to call the sudden, surrounding, Whiteness in front of you, so it's a screen for now – there are a few grey boxes around and everything is so surreal you're not sure if you can even call them boxes, cubes maybe, blocks.

The White text comes back, this time surrounded in a harsh Black box to highlight it against the vast expanse of White behind it, "PLEASE BE PATIENT. ACCLIMATISATION CAN TAKE SOME TIME." That makes you feel a little better; maybe everything won't be so blurry soon.

As soon as you start relaxing, to try and get everything to focus, there's a sudden really loud buzzing again and everything flashes a vibrant Red, then Black, to Blue, then it settles between a smudgy Blue and Red, and slowly starts to bleed out, there's a sharp line in between the two colours and you can see a big cube shaped structure in front of you, from the distance you think you can feel, it looks like a really tall building, it has a bunch of blurry Red and Blue words against Alternating Background colours, Red on Blue, Blue on Red and you inwardly curse Sollux for being such a freak, how can he read that?

The Rig seems to know what you're thinking – of course it does because it can read your thoughts, you've got to get used to that thought –and the building turns Black and the words mould into a nice familiar Grey, and that's better, but you think you preferred the White.  
It's a numbered menu: "1. HIVEFRAME", "2. SGR;UB", "3. SBUR;B", "4. TRASH", you're tempted to check out the Trash folder, but knowing how neat Sollux is it's either empty or actually is full of pointless stuff, but hey he has SBUR;B, you try and figure out how you're supposed to 'think it open', and sure enough it pops open. You're not sure how you did that though.

You see a big loading box pop up and it says SBUR;B 3.6 in Red and Blue alternating letters, you try and remember which version you play, you're pretty sure version 2.3 is the latest one you can get on a normal Computer, this is on a Rig. You also note that 3.6 hasn't even been released yet, not that you expected any less of the great Hackmaster himself. He could've legitimately gotten it from his sponsors with him being an ex beta tester, you wonder if this is a beta version that he's testing, but it doesn't say 3.6 beta, so you don't think this one will have any bugs in it still.

When you figure how to 'think' instead of click you've got the game open and Sollux' Account is already logged in, you have a scan of his Inventory, nothing special, you're surprised, and not at the same time, he spends all his time playing SGR;UB, unlike you. It does surprise you though, because you would've thought he'd like puzzles, and that's what SBUR;B is, unlimited puzzles of varying difficulties, it can be easy or literally impossible, the variation is always fun and it's nice to put it on Casual Mode and relax, not feel like there's any deadlines. Although, it does get boring pretty fast.

You sigh, well you wanted to, maybe you did.

It all comes flooding back that you can't feel your body and you feel vulnerable, yet again the System detects your thoughts and brings up a box, "PHYSICAL AWARENESS SETTING: 2", "WE SUGGEST BEGINNERS START ON 10 AND EASE INTO THE RIG AT THEIR OWN PACE." You vaguely think about doing that, and somehow that works, "PHYSICAL AWARENESS SETTING: 10", the box retreats and you are assaulted by that absolute White again, but it's starting to fade, you can make out bits of the room from your chair, and you start getting the feeling back in your arms and legs.

You find that at some point you lifted yourself up and are now sat cross legged in the chair, something you only do when you're nervous; maybe you did have full control over yourself that whole time.

That thought is probably more disconcerting than being a frozen lump, but you don't get why.

Once everything seems to settle, you find that you can't really see anything from the Rig, you're not sure how to pick out the system over your own eyes – having full Awareness is off-putting, you can see the room too well, and this is obviously why they have so many settings –if it was on 2, maybe you should try 7, you think it, it happens, maybe you're actually getting the hang of this.

You wait for the room to fade away a little but once it's settled everything's still distracting, you wonder if facing the wall would help. You try that and find that yes, that's much better, you're just glad Sollux isn't a fan of patterned wall coverings.

You open SBUR;B back up and log in to your account instead, you have to open the Tutorial to figure out how to move around and it's actually pretty fun trying to learn. You make a lot of mistakes and your Avatar walks into a lot of scenery for a while but it's not embarrassing because nobody can see you. It's like learning to play all over again, and the game feels completely different, you set up a small Sandbox Mode to help you get used to the controls, just a little mission you've completed countless times where you need to find a key and unlock a door, but there are hundreds of keys hidden around the planet and three different doors.

You jump when that black box pops up and tells you that apparently you have spent an hour playing and "PERHAPS YOU SHOULD GO EAT OR SOMETHING." It makes you laugh more than a little because it looks like the Rig thinks it is you, and that you are Sollux.

It dawns on you that maybe the Rig does think that you're him, and maybe he programmed it to sound like you, because you always hassle him about spending too long online. But it probably just got that from your brain. You wonder if there's some way to get the Rig to have a conversation with you like you're talking to yourself, but for some odd reason you think that's a bad idea.

You close the box and think about going to eat, you brought food with you knowing you'd end up staying here for a couple of days, but you don't know if it'd be weird leaving the Rig and coming back and you're not really hungry, so you stay on for another hour.

You are interrupted by another box but this time you were ready, you'd been expecting it for the last 10 minutes or so, there's an in-game clock but you can kind of figure out amounts of time on Quests from playing this game so much. The message reads "TWO HOURS NOW. ARE YOU SURE YOU WOULDN'T LIKE A BREAK?" that one seems too friendly and optional to have come from your head.

You decide that yes, you should take a break, show this Rig that you are definitely not it's owner who has probably been hooked up to this thing for more than 30 hours straight before, it is wireless so you guess he could go to the ablution block without taking it off, that must be really awkward, could you seriously do that while playing a game? You shake your head, you don't even think you can figure out eating with it on, your thoughts and senses are still a bit too muddled.

You look at the panel to your right, when you spot the 'Calibration' button you see it's changed to 'Disconnect', when you press it you expect to be brought out of this in-between feeling slowly, but the little suckers just pop their suction free and you're jolted back in to the real world and you feel really heavy and weird, you kind of see why Sollux hates getting out of this thing now.

When you get up you feel sluggish and you're not sure if it's because you've been sat still for so long or because of the almost weightless feel you got in the Rig.

You go into Sollux' Nutrition block and cook something, you're not really that hungry but you don't remember eating today, so you decide you should.

When you look at the time, it's Hour #16, Sollux has been asleep for about four hours and it's still light outside, it's been a long day already, in another two hours the Artificial night filter will start to kick in and the Dome surrounding the Space Station will start to slowly dim, another two hours and it'll be dark, that gives you about four hours until you would normally be in bed, this gives a long time with nothing to do.

You guess you'll go back on the VR Rig and play some more SBUR;B, you're kind of not feeling it right now, but what else is there to do? You pick up the headset and settle it back into position, this time when you hit 'Calibrate' it feels different, a lot more subtle when it fades in, you guess that must be the 'Physical Awareness' or whatever it was called.

You decide to check if Sollux has a SBUR;B World Editor. He must do, even though he doesn't really play the prospect of changing things is just too much to resist for him. Even you had a really basic World editor, just a little 'Choose your setting' one, so you could choose between 'World of Something and Whatever', but you heard that there are programs where you can change absolutely everything, from the colours of trees to the accents of the Consorts.

When you reach the menu though your eyes are drawn down, SGR;UB. It's all he plays, and he plays it for days on end, it can't be that bad, could kill some time.

The system opens it before you even fully decide to, you think it's being a little too pushy, but it could just be that it understands what your brain wants better than you do.

Sollux is still logged in here too, predictably, you open his profile and you don't understand a damn thing you read, there's a Bio with information on his Weaponkind and Ability and a whole bunch of other stuff you read and don't understand, something about Electricity and Debilitating, Handicaps and Cooldowns? Whatever, you can't be bothered to run a tutorial, it should be like playing SBUR;B as both games are made by the same people, or at least the same company holds the copyright. You find the Custom game button and setup a Beginner Bot game. And sure, you're pretty proud that you got it all sussed out so fast.

The loading box pops up again, and you play around, turning your head to see if it follows you, it doesn't, it's like a tangible block in front of you, you reach out to touch it and suddenly it feels really far away, the loading bar reaches 100%, and you're in.

you stand in a hallway, a big box in the middle of, what you're still calling, your screen says 'Skaia – Black Barracks', at the top in smaller letter is 'Front Corridor'. The big words start to fade out and you try using your experience in SBUR;B to walk forward, everything feels the same and you move just fine, but still a little stiffer than you do in real life. You straighten your back and find that your real body moves rather than the game Avatar, maybe you should turn that physical awareness thing down some more?

You're still not used to the System making decisions for you, it turns your setting up to 5 before you've even really thought about it and the game fades in a little clearer, you feel a tangible connection with your body now, whereas before it just was. Everything seems a little easier to separate now, and you try to straighten your Avatar up again, this time it works and you step forward some more.

You round a corner and spot the AI just stood around like it's just another day at the outdoor recreational area, you guess that's what you get for picking 'Beginner'. You slowly realise that you have no idea how to attack it, if it was physical weapons then you'd be sorted, every now and again on SBURB you need to attack an IMP or defeat a Denizen to complete a mission, you figure it'd be the same, but you don't have a physical weapon, and you're pretty sure you can't punch it.

What was Sollux' Weaponkind again? You open up his Character Bio and read through it, 'Laserkind', 'Laser Goggles'. How do you activate Laser Goggles? You reach a hand up and feel around for a button or switch, nothing, you guess you just need to 'think' the Lasers activated.

How do you think Lasers?

You try everything you can think of and you feel ridiculous. You try 'thinking' Lasers out of the Goggles, you try 'thinking' them out of your eyes themselves like some kind of evil super villain in a film. Nothing happens.

You try and ask the System for help, it pops up a small box in the corner of your vision that says "iif you need help miight ii 2ugge2t a tutoriial." You sigh, and this time you really do, both you and your Avatar do, that's a weird feeling.

When you look back up the Bot has disappeared, you decide not to give up just yet and go and find it, it's really too easy to find, it was just stood around the corner, being very beginner and just standing there out in the open, staring at you unnervingly, you think about shooting it, with your eyes, with lasers, and still nothing.

You get pissed off and think about murdering it brutally and graphically, still nothing.

You remember you read something about electricity and you imagine electrocuting it, you imagine burning it to a crisp with wisps of electric current. The imagery is suitably satisfying until you nearly have a heart attack because you activated something and now Sollux' Avatar and the Bot have been lifted slightly in the air and there are loud, crackling white sparks all around you both, you can't move for a few seconds and then you both drop, the Bot starts to run away and you stare after it

You just, stand there staring at the Avatar's outstretched hands and follow the Cooldown timer until it's fully recharged, and then you just stand there some more.

Once you've shaken yourself out of you shocked stupor, you go off and try to find the Bot again.

There's a strange polyphonic beeping tone coming from the headset, you think it's a real noise, not a game noise, but you can't figure out what it is. The System opens up a box for you telling you that it's a Video Chat Invitation, at least the Rig doesn't seem to be too patronising.

You accept the invite and look for the option to leave while you say "Sollux isn't here, he's asleep, so whoever you are, fuck off." You didn't have patience for people right now, you were determined to figure this game out and murder that AI. Whoever it is doesn't say anything and you're too busy chasing after the Bot to be interested in the slightest, it's probably just Eridan.

You find the Bot again and try to visualise the Lasers like you did the Electric, but you don't know how to picture something you've never seen, you wish that you'd made an effort to watch Sollux play now, maybe you would be able to figure this out if you had, or better yet, you wish you actually let him teach you.

You manage to lose the Bot again and curse out loud, forgetting you're on Video chat.

In a flat serious voice the stranger says, "Wow, are you Captor's girlfriend or something. You're pretty, why haven't I seen you before?"

You look at the Video feed and the first thing you notice is that it's a Human, since when did Sollux talk to Humans? You blink and don't quite register that you were asked a question, he smirks at you, swipes white bangs out of his face and flashes you an unidentifiable look with his vibrant Crimson eyes, probably one of those Designer, Genetically-Altered Human-offspring deals they're doing now, Earth dwellers sure are weird. He talks again, "dude, I know I'm hot and all but no need to get speechless over it, I'm just a normal guy like you."

"You are not, 'like me', you're a Human." You say in an audible grimace.  
"Wow Racist. Or, Speciesist, Alienist? Is there even a word for that?" he cocks a questioning eyebrow at you.

You let out a small growl and then feel ridiculous because, oh yes this is a Human, he probably just thinks that's cute, "If there is, then I pride myself on being the biggest whatever-ist it is, now like I said, Sollux is asleep, he won't be on for another 16 hours at least, was there something drastic and life-threatening that you genuinely wanted? Because if not. You can go away now."

"Wow touchy, but I get you bro, find out your boyfriend is cheating on you with this," he points back at himself, "I'd feel the same. In fact I do, I'm outraged! how could he do this to me, going behind my back with," he gestures wildly with his hand and waves it in the air as if he's trying to pull words from the atmosphere, it makes you wonder how the camera even works, where is it? What can he see of you from his end? "Hey are you the guy or the girl in the relationship? Oh wait, no. Aliens, right. Do you guys even have genders?" he squints and his eyes dart back and forth, you guess he's looking you over.

You just blink, is he for real? "What the fuck, of course we do. And I do not have a relationship with him other than 'friends', if you have some kind of interspecies long-distance relationship with my emotionally lacking excuse for a best friend then that's your volition."

He makes a small sound akin to a laugh and stretches over-dramatically, "Well as much as I'll admit I have a thing for him, I only like him for his body, his Virtual body that is." This time he definitely laughs. "On the subject of Captor's Virtual body, are you using his Avatar on your first try?"

You cross your legs at the ankles, "what makes you think that?"

"Spectator Mode, babe." He winks. He fucking winks, this guy is ridiculous.

You exaggeratedly groan, "Yeah it's the first time I've played this, who the fuck decided Eye Laser's were a thing anyway?"

He Sighs and drapes an arm across his forehead for dramatic effect, "Oh whatever will Mister Captor say if he hears you dissing his hot shades". You snort a little laugh at that, you can imagine him getting defensive about his weird Laser glasses, "anyway, you should make your own account and go into Tutorial mode, figure out what weapon you like and whatnot, unless you play SBUR;B, then you already know. Do you?"

"SBUR;B? Yeah, but nothing like Sollux plays this." You gesture in front of you; you think he got what you were indicating.

"Does anyone play anything like Captor plays this?" he leans forward at an angle and you can picture him looking over the rim of some invisible glasses, you think glasses would suit him, maybe some thick rims like Eridan wears, or Aviator ones like Vriska, you're acutely aware you are too obsessed with people's fashion agendas for your own good, or theirs. "Anyway, go make an Account, same name as your SBUR;B and sync them up, if you've got any legendary Weapons, outfits or Fraymotifs, those are your Abilities, then they'll pop up in your SGR;UB inventory and you can equip them, it's a good head start for beginners."

"Uhh, okay." You're not sure why, but you go and do what he said, logging out and finding the Create an Account button easier than you thought you would, you're getting better at this, and fast. "Okay, they're synced. Now what?"

"Okay what's your Account name? I'll invite you to a Group."

"Carcino, Geneticist." You decide not to ask any questions, if he wants to help you then why not? You receive an invite from one 'turntechGodhead' and accept it, all the motions coming automatically now, 'thinking about pressing buttons' not even being a thing now, you're just 'thinking the actions'.

"Oh nice stash dude, Melee huh, you'll wanna equip one of those red or black Sickles and that red Armour."

"Can't I use two? They're dual-wield."

"They are? Oh shit, didn't even notice, double nice. I'm too used single Weapons." He smiles a little as his eyes scan around, it's weird how aware you are of his face, it's like it's right in front of you but in the back of your mind at the same time, not in your periphery vision at all, but you can see it fine, so close you see him mouthing some of the words in the item descriptions. "Yeah the red ones, they're the best, do you like red or is that just a coincidence?"

"Coincidence. Red isn't exactly my favourite colour."

"Well that sucks, it's my favourite colour." He scratches his chin, "right, tell me once you've got that stuff equipped."  
"Okay done, now what?"

"I'm gonna play you one on one."

"The fuck for? To fuel your ego? I've never technically played, that thing with Sollux' incomprehensible Avatar doesn't count, that Electrical thing was a fluke."

"What you activated his Ability, but you couldn't use his Weapon." His tone is caught between amused and disbelieving.  
"Yeah, I remembered reading something about Electricity and I imagined electrocuting that fucking Bot and everything went loud and White."

He mock shudders "don't you fucking talk to me about his Over Powered Ability, Jesus fuck is his Avatar over powered." You can imagine the shudder being sincere, you're not sure what the attack does, but you couldn't move and afterwards 'ATTACK POWER REDUCED BY 50%' was flashing at you for a couple of seconds, why would you want a power that gives you reduced stats? "So princess, you want the foreplay or are we going in dry?"

"I don't understand your Human metaphor. But can't we just play and you tell me while we're playing?"

He goes silent and wide eyed for a few seconds and then clears his throat, "okay me and Captor need to talk, because I am seriously going to marry you. Aliens get married right?"

You laugh and shake your head, "sorry 'sweetheart' no we don't, and before you start crying, start the damn game."

He pretends to wipe away a tear as the loading box appears, "aw shit, I'm heart broken, however can I go through with this now? Oh look here I go." the loading bar reads 'Skaia – Prospitian Castle'.

After a couple of seconds you are dropped on top of what looks like just that, a castle. The walls are Grey and it feels cold, you guess it's just the visuals, you turn your real body back to look at the room, then towards the hallway to Sollux' Respiteblock and feel slightly guilty, he could wake up at any moment, he shouldn't, it's only been a few hours, not even six, he normally sleeps for at least 20 after he's been up for over a day.

He's been trying to get you to play with him for what must be over a year now, and now you're playing with a complete stranger. You're a horrible person.

You snap out of that thought and wonder if you're actually playing against this random douchebag and if you should be hiding, but no sooner do you think it than you are confronted by a figure dressed in a red suit, slightly taller than your own Avatar, but not as tall as you can make them, most people make theirs short so they're not as easily noticed, but you guess that would give them a mass disadvantage, that is a thing in Virtual reality right?

Honestly you just made your Avatar look like you do, but this weird generic Black, hornless version of you, otherwise you had the same hair, same face and same height, on SBUR;B you have the same clothes you normally wear too, only now you have two Black Sickles and a weird outfit that was a combination of cloth and Armour plating and it feels weird, like you're not wearing it but you are. You're sort of getting the hang of feeling as your Avatar; you need to picture it as a part of you. No, as if it is you. Imagine it's just another body in a different Universe or something, you think you're getting it slowly.

It's easier picturing this guy as actually being his Avatar, when you turn your head just so, the weird invisible background image where you can see his Video feed – and therefore him – overlaps his Generic White Avatar's face and you can see him echoed in it's features, although his Avatar has shades on and you feel like you should have expected that, there's just this air of douchebaggery that resonates off this guy, the bright red of his suit which doesn't have an inch of armour plating on it, his hair is exactly the same, his face looks slightly different even if you can't see the fake one very well, he stands perfectly straight in front of you, bastard sword slung over his shoulder flat ways, so if you kicked the side it could take off his head, his Avatar stands there looking smug and eerily still, something you don't think you'll ever get used to, is them not breathing, it's so surreal.

He seems to be fiddling with something over in the real world and is talking to himself, he's not even paying attention, you could stab him through the gut right now, as a joke, but you don't feel like that much of a douchebag and also don't feel like you two are friendly enough for that to be classed as a joke, are you guys friends now?

"So what are we doing?" you prompt.

He doesn't look up, "I'm gonna teach you some tricks, mainly Captors cons, show you were to hide from him, tell you little things I've picked up. I will make you a captor killing machine."

"Okay, but why are you doing this?"

He laughs under his breath and looks back up so you can see his face better, "I love taking people's SGR;UB virginity, it's like a sick hobby, surprised Captor hasn't popped whatever your alien version of a cherry is himself."

"We still have Cherries you nookmunch, why would we call our fruit stuffs anything other than what they're called on the planet they come from?" He just bites his lip, then full out laughs at you for a whole minute.

He recollects himself enough to get out, "oh my fuck dude," between his shaky breaths, "ask captor about popping cherries", and then he laughs some more.

After he's gotten over whatever was so damned hilarious he elaborates, "Anyway, I know this shit's practically Captor's life, and you're his best friend right? I mean, why else would you have access to his Account? That's a big deal dude, you could delete it and everything he's worked so hard for goes down the drain, that's some trust right there." He turns his Avatar away and looks out over the rooftops around and below the one you're stood on, "So it's kind of for him, and for me, I need more friends that play this game to practice with, wanna get good enough to go to the Tournaments. Besides, I've been bored out of my fucking skull today and I like teaching people." His Avatar gives a noncommittal half shrug and his sword slips a little with the shoulder movement, so he nudges it back up and flexes his back.

"Well thanks, uhh," you trail off expectantly.

"Dave Strider, you?"

"Karkat Vantas."

"Wait, Karkat with Ks?" you nod, and he slams a fist in his palm like he just and a eureka moment, "now I get it, KK, like Kar-Kat, Captor calls me DV and my bro DK which just makes him sound like Dick, and he is."

"His name's dick?" Dave laughs again shaking his head at you, his Avatar is still motionless and you almost forget it's there.

"His name's Dirk, he is a dick."

Real you blinks at him and Virtual you is feeling a little left out and abandoned, "what's a dick?" you venture.

Dave blinks back, then smirks, you can tell he's trying really hard not to laugh again, "Just, ask Captor that too, I am not a preschool teacher"

"A what?" Dave snickers and smacks his forehead in mock annoyance, but this time you laugh too, "okay no. Strider, I'm sorry but it'll never work out between us. We're just two completely different people."  
He smiles at you.

He proceeds to show you the entire map, not missing one little thing. He shows you where you can hide, what you can climb, he explains the advantages of having doors that can actually be opened, everything. He seems really at home here explaining all of this to you.

He then starts trying to explain certain tactics to you, like the best things to do if someone jumps you in certain areas, says never fight someone out in the open if you can help it, says that certain abilities can really fuck you up if you're exposed, like Sollux' Electrify which puts you both in Stasis and then you get Movement Speed and Attack Power reduced by half for 2 seconds, that seems a little unfair to you, but he explains that the Handicap is sufficient because he also gets the same Attack power reduction, also neither of you can communicate with your teammates, this confuses you.

"But what if you're in the same room as them?"

"Nah bro, it Mutes you, they still won't hear you, nobody can. I can't even count the number of times me and my bro have been having a normal conversation while playing, then someone mutes him halfway, shit's hilarious."

You feel a shiver run down your spine, "so the game can manipulate your body?"

"Nah not your body really, just sort of," he points at his head, "block certain messages your brain sends to it I guess. Nothing to worry about, does that freak you out?"

You just nod and look away from the general direction you guess the 'camera' is in, he takes the hint and kindly changes the subject, he explains some things about different abilities, "so you know you get the Fraymotif cards in SBUR;B, those are what give you the Abilities, you can have a fuck load of them, you might run into other people with the same Abilities, but only people with a similar title to you or your teammates, see Abilities are related to your title, or some lower level ones are just related to your Weapon. Anyway you don't really have to worry about that because the game tries to avoid setting up similar people."

You didn't think there would be this much to memorize, you're just glad he's not a fast talker. "So which of my Abilities did you pick for me?"

He smiles a little but the look in his eyes reminds you of a wriggler on his hatch day, "Well you're Blood so it relates to that."

"Blood?" you tilt your head, that has to be a joke.

"Yeah dude, Knight of Blood, I'm a knight too, it doesn't really mean anything, it's supposed to be something like the game scans your brain and the titles mean some weird psychological bull, my friends all over that stuff like flies on shit. As a Blood player you had some fucked up Abilities, mostly stuff that Decreases someone's stats, you had a Stasis Effect one too, but the  
Handicaps are really tight, found a pretty good Gold level one though, nice find by the way."

He tells you how to open your Bio so you can go and read it. It's called Carcinoma, it reduces your enemies Attack power, Movement Speed and Vision by 50%, the Handicap must've been really bad on the others because this one's horrible, you get 50% reduced Defence when Channelling – at least it's only 0.5 seconds, you probably won't even notice – and it also reduces your Vision and Movement speed by 50%.

You think the Bio away and look at Dave's Avatar, "it doesn't look very good".

"You've got a 3 second Effect and a one minute Cooldown, that is pretty sweet. You've just gotta learn how to use it best, and I'll show you that." His Avatar turns back to you and starts walking off past you somewhere, you decided to follow it. "Here'll be good, right. The thing is with Abilities, you need to figure out how to activate them yourself, I can't help you with this bit. You've just gotta imagine activating it, you used Captor's Ability, try doing the same sort of thing but this time imagine those tendril things it mentions on my Avatar. Get all tentacle hentai up in here."

You think about what 'Tendrils' could look like, you imagine tentacles because he said that, whatever he was talking about, silly Humans and their alien metaphors, but tentacles are close enough right? It said they 'strangle an enemy', so you imagine said tentacles strangling his smug smartly dressed Avatar's neck, nothing happens, this is a little déjà vu.

"Not working?" you shake your head, "hmm, try this." He steps forward and grabs your Avatar's arm, and that's weird because you can feel it on your real body, or at least you think you can, maybe you're just getting used to 'feeling your Avatar'.

"Why is there flashing?" your Virtual eyes are being harassed by subtle red blinking around the edge of your vision.

"We entered Combat because I touched you, we're on opposite teams, don't worry about it, doesn't mean anything, it's to help with Combat timers. And don't ask, I'll tell you about them when they come up." He's moved both your arms up so they're out in front of you, Sickles pointed up, the bladed inward curves facing toward you. "Okay well I got all mine first try, but this is more complicated and it's your first time so it's expected. Now look at me, sort of think about your Weapons and imagine, let's say Black, running through them and into me."

You try, and predictably you're left standing there motionless and, nothing happens. You try this for a couple of minutes, slowly losing patience, until you lose your temper a little, "this is fucking stupid!" you thump his Avatar in the chest with the handle of one of your Sickles and leave it there.

Out of spite to this stupid thinking system you imagine his stupidly overdressed Avatar being slowly consumed by a shadowy squid like apparition, you can feel yourself getting angrier, your vision grows darker and time seems to slow down, you're allowed to hit him, he's not real. You imagine the tentacle like mirages choking him, clutching him in their grasp until you can't see him through them.

You're being unreasonable, you need to relax, you close your eyes, you feel like something unidentifiable washes over you and you calm down.

"Okay that was really good, but next time try actually moving when you do it, else attack me, you can't just stand there."

"Huh?" you stare at him and he looks like he's bored of you.

"Your ability. Let's wait for the Cooldown and next time see if you can do it from a distance, I don't imagine it's a contact Effect, that'd be stupid."

"Wait, I did it?"

"Well yeah dude, you were there too, I don't know what it looked like to you but I had loads of blinking Reduction warnings and the Vision down, didn't you notice?"

"No I was distracted. Sorry." You feel stupid, you also don't know how you did it, you hope it wasn't the anger, because if you have to get angry to use it every time that'd be very inconvenient.

He backs up from you a few steps and you notice a little counter on your HUD, it's at 20 seconds and counting down, when it finishes it flashes at you a couple of times and you look up at Dave's Avatar, you imagine the wrapping Tentacles of shadow again, but no luck. You grunt, brainstorm for a few seconds, maybe while you're still figuring it out it would be easier to make a physical move.

Without thinking twice about it you slam both your Sickles on the ground hard and imagine shooting black shadows rush up his legs and embrace him, everything goes blurry and dark, you're imagining it and seeing it, so you think you might've done it, you look at your HUD and there in little capitals along the bottom are the words "VISION/MOVEMENT -50%".

You did it.

You remember what Dave said, you try and run at him but find yourself sluggish, you're still running, but in slow motion. You hit normal speed before you reach him and he swings his sword around and up in an arc to catch your curved blade, "awesome but don't kill me right now, you need more practice and fuck waiting for respawns."

You nod, and Dave lets you practice on him some more.


	3. Practice Game: Clean Slate

Days in the future, but not many.

It is hour #4, day #24, month #5, year #202, and we observe a different young Troll in his Hive.

He's a pretty big deal, ok? Some people seem to think he's awesome at a certain game. He guesses they're right. He has been playing since before it was released after all. Actually, you know what? They're right. This guy's got so many sponsors he could probably buy his own private Space Station.

Anyway, he's standing around, thinking about this game like Pros do sometimes, when they're not moping around or wondering whether people think they're shallow or whatever.

An awesome guy like this probably has his own fan base. Or at least a large amount of people that like to pretend to be his friend. He must have a few real friends too, maybe some that don't even play that game he's so good at, and perhaps they don't even know how famous he really is? That's probably a good thing, being able to get away from the pressure of being a star.

Okay, so he's not that famous.

But he does have quite an interesting back story; maybe he's feeling reminiscent enough to let us have a look?

Years in the past...

Oh, maybe not. We stick to the present.

It appears this guy doesn't want to think about his past right now, he's feeling a little bored with all of this; he's got stuff to do.

So what is this guy's name?

Your name is SOLLUX CAPTOR.

You are so insane at a certain Virtual Reality game that you should probably be locked up in a mental institution. You hold the unchallenged top of the Leader board, and though all your 'friends' recognize your unparalleled achievements as an amazing gamer, you feel like you could be better. It's one of a number of things you try and improve on, even though you are apparently the best. You don't really feel like you're all that special. You look just like any other Troll, only thing is for some reason you have two sets of horns, this completely alludes you though, as there isn't anything else wrong with you. You used to be short sighted as a wriggler and wore glasses, but apparently it's a normal thing that happens sometimes and you've since grown out of them.

You think you look nice in glasses, your Avatar in the aforementioned game is even sporting a pair, a pair of red and blue anaglyph glasses, they were part of one of the Human download packages, but for some reason they caught your eye, you're not sure why. Sometimes you find yourself wondering what it would look like if you actually had red and blue eyes, but you know this would be impossible and you're just stuck with your normal Troll eyes.

You were a Beta tester for a relatively a new game, created by an unknown gaming idol known only as Her Rightful Anonymia. You believe this game to be the most amazing thing to ever be created in your, or any, lifetime, but you wish that your friends would see this. You keep trying to encourage all your friends to play it, and one day you will succeed, you hope to make a Tournament Team eventually. You don't know if you feel like a Team Captain, you know someone who's really good at giving people orders, but he won't even touch your VR Rig. Your Account name istwinArmageddons and the game makes you 2peak wiith a bunch of jumbled qualiitiie2 that you dont even under2tand 2ometiime2.

What will you do?

Perhaps you should remember why you were too busy to tell us more about yourself.

Oh shit that's right, your best friend is coming over, how could you forget?

Last time he was over he left pretty quickly, normally he stays over yours every week, stays for six days, goes home for four, then comes back. Because that's how weeks work, who ever heard of a week without 10 days in it?

Sometimes you wish he had more friends, but if he did then he wouldn't be around as often, and to be honest, you get pretty lonely yourself. You even offered to let him stay with you, it's not like it'd make a difference to you, you have enough money in your Credit Account right now to buy another 20 Hives like yours. You would do some charity and buy Homeless Trolls somewhere to live if the Station System didn't already do that, you have too much money to know what to do with, so you just ignore it.

A while ago you set up an Order with a technological Vendor, you told them whenever your best friend wanted a new computer or decided to get a VR Rig, they would give him the best they had in stock, and they could just take it straight from your account. He told you off and said if he ever got a Rig he'd buy it himself, you've never really told him how much money you have, you think he would take it as you trying to show off.

You're brought out of your thoughts by knocking.

When you open the Door to your Hive, sure enough it's who you were expecting. Karkat is early as always. You take a few seconds to just smile at him and appreciate the fact that you're taller than him, it's not really that much, he's about average height and you're only slightly taller, it just looks worse on you because you're so skinny.

You invite him in, pretending to be civilised, and he shoves you aside and calls you ridiculous.

He's brought a few movies with him and it's only hour #5, so you go to your smaller entertainment block and watch three. After the first 10 minutes of one film you can't resist commenting anymore, he's picked out two romantic comedies and one action film, you spend both Romcoms asking Karkat things like, "who's really like that though? In real life." And, "so why don't they just make out and get it over with?" He laughs despite complaining about your interruptions, even he admits the action film he hired is ridiculous and unrealistic, so you both laugh about it while you watch. It's nice having him here, having real people company; in general you're not too keen on people unless they're on the other side of a computer.

Once you're finished it's hour #9, so you go and make something for you both to eat. You've been getting better at cooking lately but you mostly eat human things because they're easier, and Karkat has some pointless hostility towards Humans that reaches an absurd degree. You don't think he's even met a Human, so you don't get his issue.

You fancy playing SGR;UB after you finish eating, you hate being rude when he's over but he understands, you've got Sponsored Matches to play tomorrow and you need to Practice. You ask him if he wants to play with you, you ask him every time he's over, he never says yes.

He does say he'll watch you though, this is new.

You head to your main entertainment block and sit in your chair and gesture for Karkat to sit in the other, he does, and you notice he's avoiding looking at the console with all the flashing lights. You put on your headset and Calibrate; he doesn't even flinch at the noise like Vriska did.

When you sign in there's only three people online, two you don't really know, one is Eridan.

You send Eridan an invite and when he accepts it, Karkat is watching the External monitor, he looks fascinated by it, either that or he's just looking at the video feed, has he ever seen Eridan before? They do live on opposite sides of the Space station, so you suppose not. You turn on the external speakers so he can hear him too.

"Hey, you'll never guess who's sat here with me."

"I have a few ideas; you'll have to give me a clue."

Karkat raises an inquisitive eyebrow at you; you've never mentioned who else you have over, fuck Eridan for being so tactless.

"Fuck you, no. It's KK."

Eridan looks a little surprised, he's known about Karkat's avoidance for the past year, it's been a frequent topic of discussion; even he wants him to play. You know Eridan wants to go to the Tournaments, he's good enough too, Vriska's really good but she's too selfish and only plays 1v1s, but even if she joined you that only makes three, with Karkat four, still need one more. You could probably pick up someone else pretty easily, but there's no guarantee they'll be any good. Maybe they'll drop the same-Species rule soon and you can have that Human and his brother rather than Vriska, they're really good in teams, and you know they both want to play Tournament matches.

"Is he actually going to play?" Eridan says teasingly, he can be such a wriggler sometimes.

Karkat decides to join your conversation, "tell him to go fuck himself, I'll play if I want to."

You feel a little hopeful, maybe now is the time that you actually get him to play, so you ask him, "do you want to?"

"I don't know, maybe?" he looks back to the screen, gets a grumpy expression and looks up at the spare headset you leave out for company. "Fuck it, go on."

You smile and tell Eridan that you'll talk to him later, he acts put upon but you can see him smiling too. If Karkat does well and gets the hang of it then you're definitely going to get hold of Eridan in a few minutes and invite him for some friendly 3v3s.

"Okay, you want to play a tutorial, or you want me to show you how to play myself?"

"Just show me, I don't have the patience for tutorials." Yeah you didn't think so.

You tell him to stay in the chair, you hit the Disconnect button and you get up to get the spare Headset, you put it on for him and he flinches away from it a little at first, you wonder if he's scared of it and that's why he's never played before, so you're slow and gentle with it.

After you've got that set up for him you press the Calibration button again and he doesn't even jump at the suction, perhaps he's not scared, or he was just expecting it.

He takes to it really well, doesn't freak out or anything, you remember Eridan being so dramatic and having to walk around with the Physical Awareness set to 10 for over an hour before he would even think about playing anything. Thinking about that, you tell Karkat how to change the Awareness Setting and he gets it after a few tries, he sets it to 5, you try and tell him that he might want to start off higher, but he just waves you off and says he's sure it'll be fine.

You start up a 1v1 in a Practice Game mode called 'Clean Slate', which gives you both completely clean characters and only access to Default Weapons and Abilities, you choose your Weapons, closest you can get in this mode is a Laser Headband which has a smaller range and slower fire rate, but works the same, it also looks ridiculous. Karkat chooses dual daggers, not something you would've pinned him for, but you can imagine he would like Melee; it's the easiest to explain anyway so that works for you, he can always change it if he doesn't like them. You choose your Abilities, they're all ridiculously pointless but easy to use and this way it's not unfair to him, you just pick the mutual Attack power -25% for 1 second. Karkat chooses the same in Defence. When you pick a Map, you choose a common one for beginners, 'Prospit - Corridors'.

Once you load in, you head off to find his Avatar, he says he's in the Library so you head over there, it's on completely the other side of the Map – but it's only a small Map so it's not too long before you find him – you give him a few little pointers about how to walk and use his Weapons, ask if he can figure it out from there, and he's pretty much got it straight off, says it's just a case of remembering that the Avatar's supposed to be you, but not you at the same time, and therefore it's just like 'pretending to walk', you're genuinely impressed, you ask him if he can figure it all out on his own now or if he wants you to explain anything in more detail, but then your Reduction Warning is flashing and he's laughing.

"Figured out how to use Abilities already, this is easy, go off and hide somewhere."

You chuckle lightly to yourself and 'go off and hide somewhere'. That somewhere isn't anywhere special, you don't want to make it too hard on him, you climb up a ladder and get onto the roof of The Library, then your Reduction Warning is flashing at you and you guess he followed you, you turn back to face him but then you're waiting to respawn and he's not there, the lingering camera turns and shows that he wasn't behind you at all, he was in front of you, and he's waving to the camera and then runs off in the direction he came from.

- SC: 0/1 – KV: 1/0

"Beginners luck huh, now watch me never be able to kill you again."

You smirk, once you respawn you head to wherever he must be going, the only thing that way is the Castle Gates. You slink around the corridors heading to the Courtyard; you lean through the doorway to check if he's there then dash across to the other side, feet just barely rustling the fake grass, but just as you emerge into the next corridor over, Reduction Warning, Respawn Timer.

- SC: 0/2 – KV: 2/0

"How did you see me?"

"I was just walking and you jumped right out in front of me."

"Huh. You sure are lucky."

You're getting a little suspicious, thinking about it, there's no way he would've gotten the hang of it this fast, it took you half an hour to be able to move properly and use your Weapons and abilities. Then again you didn't have defaults; you went straight into really advanced gear, and back in the Beta version the game was full of bugs. Maybe you're just being silly.

You're on even deaths now, you have a little quirk that if you hit an even number of deaths you like to play passive and hide, it's just a weird little OCD thing you picked up a while ago, you don't have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in general, but you've got it really bad over this one little thing. You find a hiding spot and think about it, maybe he knows something, so you decide to find a spot you don't normally hide in instead, just in case he knows your habits somehow. He did tell you to go and hide straight off and that's a common starting tactic you use, but again it could just be a coincidence, he's your best friend, why would he lie to you about not having played?

After a couple of minutes of sticking to that same spot, you see him pass by, he's got his back pressed against the wall and is completely silent, you're briefly impressed, and then you're sure this isn't the first time he's played when he pokes his head around the corner quickly and ducks back, looking back behind him down the dark corridor.

You jump out of your space between a chair and a wall and use your Lasers on him, he turns and you use your Ability before he can reach you, you think you can see him calculate if it's worth the risk of using his Ability and jumping, but if he does he'll bring down his own Defence and his Attack Power is already down, before your Reduction even wears off he's ducked back behind the wall and you chase him, but when you get there, he's gone, and you don't know which door he went through, damn this Map.

Neither of you talk, it feels eerily silent, you can vaguely hear him breathing sometimes, but your Physical Awareness is set really low and you can't feel your body very much, it's relaxing, you've got your system set up perfectly, you remember sitting there one time back when you were Beta testing SGR;UB 1.2, you were bored and not in the mood to play, so you fiddled with the Physical Awareness settings, you managed to get it to a point where you could still move your body if you wanted to, but you couldn't feel it if you had an itch. That was a very important experiment.

You notice his Health Meter fill up on your HUD, you're pretty sure there's no automated message telling you how to use the Health Stations, and you forgot to mention them, so you know he's either played this or someone's told him about it. You wonder if it was Eridan or Vriska, they're the only people you know that have VR Rigs, and maybe Eridan and Karkat talk sometimes and you just didn't know, but you're pretty sure they haven't met in person. As for Vriska, she'd never let anyone use hers.

You decide that even though your deaths are even, you just entered combat, so it kind of voids that dilemma and you can go looking for him and don't need to hide, this seems to be sufficient reasoning and you don't even feel twitchy about going after him.

You find him at the top of the Grand Stairs, he's just sort of wandering from one side of the landing to the other, you wait until he hits the centre and blast him, it takes him by surprise and so the momentum of your Ranged Force overwhelms him and he falls over. He can't get back up in time and you kill him, it doesn't feel very special.

You think you can hear him laughing.

- SC: 1/2 – KV: 2/1

When you look over to him he's got a serious face on like he's concentrating really hard, but he's still waiting to respawn. Was he even laughing?

You think killing him probably counteracts your little compromise, so now you go back to hiding, trying to find somewhere different again, or maybe you should double bluff and hide in a normal spot. He's got to have noticed that you're on to him by now.

Once you've found somewhere, you hear really quiet footsteps around the corner, so instead of hiding you go and check it out, Karkat's climbing one of the outside brick walls, you didn't even know you could climb that one.

He's too far away to hit from here, so you need to walk over to him a bit, you decide to climb up after him before he reaches the top, you rush through the open space quickly and grip the bricks, there are really slight indents in the gaps that are apparently enough to hold on to, that's video game logic for you.

You inch up after him, he's maybe halfway up and you're only a few feet below him, once he gets to the top you worry he's going to look back down and see you, but he doesn't, just disappears over the edge of the roof.

You get to the top and peer over the ledge, you don't see him anywhere.

You hitch a leg over, but before you can get your Avatar steady you get slammed in the chest hard, your eyes close out of instinct and you fall backwards off of the roof, the fall takes half your Health and you open your eyes only to see Karkat's Avatar kneeling on your chest, you see him stab you somewhere below the bottom edge of your vision and then you see the Respawn timer, with the lingering camera watching him casually stand up and just hover there over your slowly disintegrating corpse.

- SC: 1/3 – KV: 3/1

He is definitely laughing this time, you look over and he doesn't stop, just points at nothing in front of him and says, "That was fucking sick dude."

You're kind of pissed, he's making a fool out of you but you don't want to call him out about it, you just sit there and do nothing. You respawned nearby so you decide to go back and see if he's still close, in fact, he's forgotten to move completely, he's just left his Avatar out in the open stood in a shiny puddle of black, game generated blood.

You hit him with you Lasers and he jolts in real life, his Avatar rushes off behind another wall and you chase it, only to find he's completely disappeared again, this is getting stupid. You wander around the corner and look through doorways to try and find him.

A message pops up inviting you to a voice Chat with turntechGodhead, you think you probably shouldn't answer a Human when you're with Karkat, but he can't see the External Monitor while he has the headset on so he won't notice, you can just keep it to thought chat replies.

But when you open it, you suddenly don't understand anything.

-  
CG: DO YOU THINK HE WOULD BE PISSED ABOUT ME GOING BEHIND HIS BACK?  
CG: WELL YEAH, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW HIM LIKE I DO.  
CG: SHOULD I STILL GET HIGHER GROUND?  
CG: HE'S STILL HIDING OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T FIND HIM.  
CG: OH SHIT THERE HE IS, HE'S FOLLOWING ME UP THE SNEAKY BASTARD.  
CG: OH MY FUCK THAT WAS AWESOME!  
CG: I JUST LAUNCHED HIM OFF THE FUCKING BUILDING, DID YOU SEE THAT?  
CG: THAT WAS SOME GRADE A ACTION SEQUENCE SHIT, ARE YOU PROUD OF ME STRIDER?  
CG: HE LOOKS SO PISSED, IT'S ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY HILARIOUS.  
CG: FUCK I FORGOT TO HIDE AGAIN, YOU'RE SO FUCKING DISTRACTING, HE NEARLY KILLED ME AGAIN.  
twinArmageddons joined Group Chat.  
CG: STRIDER!  
CG: DON'T FUCKING INVITE HIM IN HERE!  
twinArmageddons was kicked from the chat by carcinoGeneticist

You were too busy reading to notice he kicked you, once you see that, you turn to look at him, he just sighs at you.

"DV." You say disbelievingly, "Really?"

"Shit."

You take off your Headset without Unlinking and get a lightning sharp spike through your brain in exchange, you forgot you shouldn't do that, you curse at the shock and throw the Headset onto your chair, you turn and head for your respite block clutching your face, he doesn't follow you. You lock your door and sit at your desk.

About half an hour later your laptop chimes at you, you have a message on your Skaianet Account.

Messages – Dave Strider  
Currently playing: SGR;UB – In the Lobby  
TG: dude im sorry don't blame vantas that was my idea  
TG: he was on your account last week and i sort of adopted him  
TG: i thought it might be funny to play a little trick on you  
TG: i know how much him playing meant to you and i thought if i could teach him and make him really good then youd be all  
TG: hey kk you got really awesome at this all of a sudden  
TG: yeah i know i have the best teacher man its unreal  
TG: wow that sounds awesome dude introduce me to this god of sgrub you speak of  
TG: oh man no you cant just talk to him thats blasphemy  
TG: okay so im getting carried away but i just thought if i could teach him then hed get really good and you would be happy and shit you know  
TA: DV you are riidiiculou2.  
TA: and iit2 okay, ii can take a joke.  
TG: yeah  
TG: because vantas is in your living room freaking out thinking your guys arent friends or some shit  
TA: diid he tell you to a2k me iif were 2tiill friiend2?  
TG: nah dude i didnt tell him i was talking to you  
TG: hes just freaking out in general  
TG: oh and hes pissed at me because it was my idea and now you hate him  
TG: and youre never gonna speak to him again  
TG: and hes about to leave so you dont have to see him  
TG: captor you still there

"KK?"

"Sollux, fuck I'm sorry, look I"-

"Shh dude, give me a second."

You pick up your Headset and it zaps you again because it's still trying to connect to you, it doesn't hurt so much this time and you ignore it, you just put it straight on, you hope this won't scramble your brain or some shit, you were never told not to, but they didn't exactly say it was an okay thing to do either, it's just common sense. Once you've got it on you scroll through your Contact list.

TA: ED, you wanna 2v2?  
CA: uh like right now  
TA: yeah, KK ii2 playing wiith DV and ii need a partner.  
TA: and you can take DV wiith me, ii dont know how good KK ii2 though.  
TA: ii don't know hii2 abiiliity.  
CA: how can you not know didnt he just start playing  
CA: and didnt you teach him  
CA: am i missin somethin  
TA: no DV taught hiim.  
CA: oh  
CA: should i not ask  
TA: nah iil tell you later, you want two play then?  
CA: well sure if you want  
CA: i just have to finish this match  
TA: ok well dont take too long.

You look back at Karkat.

"Sollux?"

You smile at him, "I have an idea, just give me a few minutes."

"So, you're not pissed off at me?"

"Oh dude I am so pissed off you don't even know, now invite me back to that chat."

He doesn't, he invites you to a new one and invites Dave to it afterwards, he must not want you to see what he wrote, even though you already did. You won't mention it.

"Trouble in paradise huh?" DV says.

"Nah everything's fine, I have a surprise for you two."

Eridan exits his game with perfect timing.

CA: okay im done

caligulasAquarium joined group chat

You setup a custom 2v2, set it so you can all still talk to the opposing team if you want to, when you're done you take a brief moment to check Dave's Bio, he changes his ability sometimes. It's still Flash Step.

You also take the time to check Karkat's Bio, he has a pretty well geared Account, he's got Gold level Weapons, Armour and a Gold Ability, reading over it, it looks pretty decent, really complicated, but good. You're proud but also kind of disappointed; this might mean he's pretty good already.

You think Eridan's Ability might be good against his though, Karkat gets reduced Movement Speed as a Handicap and Eridan gets Increased Movement Speed as an Effect, you start up the game.

'Skaia – Dersite Castle'

As you land in the Throne Room, Karkat looks over toward you, "Sollux?"

"hmm"

"what's a cherry?"


	4. Space Shuttle Penton

_((there are some Original Characters in this chapter, you don't need to memorise them, they're just playing a part in the next couple of chapters))_

_((Bios for Canon characters, OCs and OC Credits at "goddesscat" tumblr "/vraubios"))_

**_Hourly Anaylisis_**

**_Space Shuttle: Penton - Hour=#25_**

**_Temperature=24°C – Shuttle Integrity=94.52224%_**

**_Destination=Sough - Estimated Arrival Time=67 Hours_**

Where are we now?

It appears that we are on a shuttle out in space on Day #8, Month #3, Year #201, heading towards the Space Station Sough, could this mean that whoever is on this shuttle is from somewhere else entirely?

Everyone aboard this shuttle seems to be asleep or busy, aside from one rather bored looking Troll; perhaps he'll let us accompany him for a little while.

You ask rather nicely if you may talk to him, he looks up from a rather large Alternian book, politely nods and smiles, so shall we get to know this stranger?

Your name is Kankri Vantas, and – wait, what the hell are you doing here?

You don't see a problem with your current position. You live on the Space Station Allon –which incidentally is an exact replica of the Space Station we were just on, you don't know this though – and you are on your way to Sough, on an important mission.

Well, you have your own personal mission, actually you don't really have any business on Sough, you're just here for your Moirail, who has an, apparently, very substantial job to do here.

Your Moirail is a member of a Virtual Reality Gaming team, they are going to be playing a match that will be a very important part of Virtual gaming history in just over a month, as part of this, all 5 of them, and one guest each, get to spend some time on Sough, getting to know the people there, learning more about their history, researching things about them, things you could've easily done on the internet from your own Hive if you were interested enough. But your Moirail needs you, and perhaps it would be nice to get away from it all for a while. Your job can be rather stressful at times, and it is nice to meet new people.

You look over to your significant other, he's asleep and drooling, you wipe his chin with your handkerchief and tut to yourself as you close his mouth, he would be a mess without you.

So Kankri, are you going to explain to us why you're actually here? We don't know what the hell you're talking about with this important mission bullshit.

Despite being asked in a rude way, you guess you'll oblige. But you really should be mindful of how you engage your conversational partners, you could offend someone.

Anyway, you are here because there is a contest going on, which you thought you just mentioned, don't you know about it? It's all over the news. Oh well I'm sure you'll hear about it soon. As you must know, the Virtual Reality game named SGR;UB was created by a Troll known only as Her Rightful Anonymia, which of course means she is Anonymous, she could be anyone, in fact it's not even known whether or not she is indeed female or whether that is just a rumour, not that it really matters as Gender is more of a title for Trolls, but it could be very problematic if she indeed does not identify as a female and she/he could be offended greatly by people describing her/him wrong, which of course you know and which we shall discuss some other time if you like, but right now we are focussing on one main point. SGR;UB was made by a Troll, for Trolls, if your sources serve you right then it was created on one of the Troll's planets and was later released to the Space Stations, it is also believed that there may have been Humans that have tried to hack the system files and gain entry to the game, but to no avail, the game servers were programmed and administrated by Her Anonymia's personal programahacker, who is thought to be very talented.

Apparently Her Rightful Anonymia isn't exactly a fan of Humans, but even she can appreciate that they've let a large number of Trolls cohabit with them on these Space Stations, and so she has decided to release the game to the Humans, but only if they can complete a trial.

This is why your Moirail and his teammates are here, they are the opposing team, you personally think it's rather unfair that the Humans have to go up against them as they are rather good, and the Humans only have a month to train and try and beat them, but you try not to have an opinion on these matters, this is nothing to do with you honestly.

You ask Kankri to tell us a little more about himself personally; since this is going to be a long trip.

He has no problem with this, but what precisely would you like to talk about?

Well, maybe you could start by explaining why you and your sleepy buddy there look kind of familiar.

He doesn't know why they would look familiar, you must be confused. Perhaps he would tell us if he knows why there are a couple of humans on board this shuttle.

Of course you do. They're from your Space Station, they're part of the trial, very promising Humans that should be able to learn how to play SGR;UB very quickly, not that you know anything about SGR;UB, you do however know a lot about Humans, you've researched them extensively and you try and treat them as equals, even though there are a great many things you don't like about their species, but you can't judge individuals by the actions of others or by things they have no control over.

You live right in the centre of the Space Station Allon, and as such, you are surrounded by many Humans, you have an equal number of Human friends as you do Troll, which is actually a lot, though you don't know many of them very well. You work in a library and you run debates after hours, but that's more of a volunteer position. You've been given a rather high Allowance from the System, but you're not sure why, so has your Moirail and a few other people you know, which is strange.

Oh speaking of your Moirail, he's waking up. Would you like to talk to him?

Ok, so who's this douchebag?

Your name is Mituna Captor, and you are not a douchebag. You are very tired though, but not in a bad way, you sleep a lot better in moving vehicles than you do in your own bed, you like the noise and the motion. Also Kankri is here and he's very warm. You snuggle into him a bit more to get comfier, he protests but you don't care. You're a very cuddly person, he accepted that when he agreed to be your Moirail. Well you say 'agreed', he basically forced you to let him, seriously he treats you like a wriggler sometimes, it's almost like he thinks you're brain damaged and can't function without him or something, which is ridiculous, because you're absolutely fine. You have never been – and hopefully never will be – brain damaged. That's just a rumour Cronus made up to piss you off.

You are the leader of this team, did Kankri tell you about that? Oh.

Well personal stuff, you like a lot of things, but right now you can't concentrate enough to tell us about them, maybe some other time.

'Captor' is definitely familiar, there's something going on here.

Yes there is, you suppose you'll explain your theories, it's a secret though, so don't tell.

There are rumours that someone has been doing genetic research on Trolls and been creating clones, apparently their experiments weren't very successful as none of the clones turned out identical. You've been doing research on this for a while and found out that there is a Troll on the very same Space station you're heading to, right now, with the same Identification name – or last name, as the humans call it – as you, that must mean something. You also think you tracked down your originator, his files were easy to find – almost like someone wanted you to find them – they say he's an Adult in the military, a First Class Helmsman, a noble job that you wish to be able to do when you're old enough, you suppose that's probably playing right into your maker's hands by doing what they made you to do, but honestly you don't care.

Does this mean you're doing this to try and meet your clone/brother?

Not at all, that was just a coincidence and you only found out about him on the Shuttle while you were scouring the Stations records to see if anyone you've played SGR;UB with lives here, although you suppose you could try and find him, you don't know if he'll accept what you say though.

You don't have a problem coming to terms with the fact that you were engineered in some laboratory – honestly you think it's kind of cool – but some people might, you think Kankri definitely would, so you've never told him any of this, which is okay, because you don't think there was any more Vantas's around, so he'll never find out. His sensitivity towards his origins is just another way you can pity him secretly.

Before this divulges into an in depth discussion about how much you pity your cuddle buddy, why don't you just tell us who else is on this shuttle.

Well fine. You weren't going to though, you don't shove your happiness in anyone else's face.

So right, people, there's the rest of your team, and their friends – because you're each allowed to bring a guest to Sough with you – there's also two Humans from your Station that are going to be on the opposing team, but they're in a different part of the shuttle and you're not allowed to see them, but you know a few things about them. Their names are Brad Lee and Laurel Best, neither of them brought anyone with them because they were already friends and would've brought each other anyway.

Apparently Brad tried to start a fight with one of the random passengers on the other side of the Shuttle earlier because he's a headstrong idiot who can't control his temper, but Laurel stopped him because she's a really nice person and obviously doesn't want anyone to get hurt, it sounds a lot like moirallegiance to you, generally Humans don't do that, but sometimes they are open to other cultures.

On your side of the Shuttle there's Malato Dromen, you try and steer clear of her, she's a bad ass gamer girl and likes to hurt people for the fun of it, she's probably had more kismesises than you've had 2v2 partners. Marcia Dentin, she's been rather shy around everyone so far but she seems to be getting used to being in the public eye more with all these Tournaments you go to, and at least she doesn't argue like some people. Floria Privet , you shouldn't have favourites, but Floria's always good at listening to you and follows commands perfectly, although sometimes she doesn't seem to think for herself and won't move unless you tell her to, also she hasn't quite gotten used to her new ability completely, but you've still got a month until the Contest. Lastly there's Meiros Neriam, he take's everything quite seriously and he's hard to get a laugh out of when it's time to play, but you suppose it's good that he takes it all like that, he's an asset to your team, his ability is risky but well worth it if you can defend him.

All in all you're glad you're on this side of the Shuttle.

Well not much is happening here. Perhaps we should skip ahead a little, and may I suggest, to somewhere else entirely?

We skip ahead a little and to somewhere else entirely.

So here we are, unexpectedly back on the Space Station Sough.

Here we find this totally cool dude, he's in his apartment on his VR Rig, playing SBUR;B but not completing any quests, quests are for chumps. He's just wandering around making friends with the consorts and looting chests for worthless crap. He could probably wreck the shit out of this game, but that'd be too boring for a cool guy like this. It's a wonder he even has time to play this sort of game when he has a totally sweet blog to run, he is internet famous after all, he probably doesn't even have time to talk to us, but it could be worth a try.

You ask this awesomely cool guy his name in an aloof fashion; he wouldn't pay attention if you asked like a fan girl you're sure.

Your name is Dave Strider. As was mentioned you run a blog, in fact you run several similarly themed sites of varying content, but one is rather recognisable, it's nothing special, you just post terrible ironic comics and write reviews of indie Virtual Reality games, but people seem to like it. Your VR rig is pretty much top of the line, you share it with your brother and he built it himself out of spare parts, he's really good with shit like that, you could care less about it. You prefer to mix music in your spare time, a lot of people like music and since you're internet famous – did we mention that? – a lot of people will happily throw money at you to make it, between this and your bro's engineering stuff, you guys are pretty well off.

You nearly forgot to mention that you collect weird dead things preserved in various ways. You like to keep large insects in amber in your hallway as a tour starter, and jars of small mammals and birds in formaldehyde in your living room, this generally freaks people out enough, in your bathroom you have a random plastic tank-wall in the middle of the room with a full length mirror that covers about half it's surface, inside this wall are fish. Dead fish.

You do this all for general, ironically humorous reasons that both you and your bro can appreciate. Occasionally he takes one of your dead animals out of their respective containers and they return a week later, you're not sure what he's doing with them, you don't want to ask. You have a feeling he's either hiding them for you to randomly find; or he's just daring you to ask him about it.

Sometimes the lengths he goes to with his own ironic stunts scares you, and you don't understand.

So now that we've gotten to know you, perhaps we could meet your brother?

No, that is totally unacceptable, because he is a douchebag.

Besides he's not here right now, he's fixing something for someone.

Well then maybe we can watch you play SBUR;B? We haven't really gotten a look at that yet.

You nod slightly, sure.

You run over a bridge and do some totally sweet parkour moves across a few giant cogs in lava or some shit, you wonder idly if you can get an add-on or a hack to make a skateboard, there are so many awesome places you could grind here in the Land of Heat and Clockwork, not that you can really skate, that's more of your bro's thing, but it could be ironic if you tried, maybe? Probably not. You wander up to a cave; it's got some symbols on it and before you can even begin to imagine what they might mean, you turn around, nope, no quests.

You go look for more chests with pointless crap in them.

You get a notification to join a group video chat from an account name you've never seen before, you accept it, because let's face it you're bored as fuck right now. You see a couple of guys on the video feeds and oh, they're Trolls. You haven't spent much time with Trolls, not that you don't like them, it's just you're quite far out from the centre of the Space Station and you don't really spend much time with people you don't know, well not face to face, or via video, you've probably got a whole bunch of Troll fans online that you've talked to, you suppose you just don't really give a crap about all this species business, you're all just people right?

The person that invited you – some twitchy woman – isn't talking, but someone else is, a big guy with huge jagged horns and a couple of obvious scars across his face, also blindingly obvious is you can tell he either likes purple or that's his blood colour and he's proud of it – not that it means anything – you can never tell with Trolls. He looks familiar but you can't place him.

The big guy's talking to another guy about some game, twitchy girl clears her throat loudly and then they seem to notice you're there.

"Oh hello, Dave Strider I presume?"

"Who's askin'?"

"My name is Gaston Ampora, I'm here to make you a proposition."

"I'm listenin'."

"I work for Her Rightful Anonymia. Do you know of her?"

"Can't say I do, are you like, tryna recruit me for some religion, because I do not accept some Troll chick as my lord and saviour."

He chuckles slightly, "Nothing like that I assure you, hear me out."

You nod and motion for him to continue.

"She is a Troll who created a Virtual Reality game for Alternians called Sgrub, in the last year it has been released to Trolls on Space Stations such as your own, recently she has decided that she wishes Humans to be able to play this game as well, but it has been highly unadvised by some, with comments about Humans not being able to grasp it. We are here to disprove this. We are gathering a team of 5 Humans, we will teach these Humans for a total of one month and then they shall go against a Tournament team from a different Space Station. You have been chosen because you were highly recommended by followers of your-" He pauses, smiles, "Blog."

"Okay, well you are tryin' to recruit me for, something. Why should I do this?"

"Have you not seen the news coverage for this project? Perhaps you should go and research this and contact us again shortly."

"Yeah, sure."

You disconnect from the chat with no intentions of doing that.

Well,why not check out what that guy was saying?

Well why should you? You have loads of stuff to get done on your blog, and you just heard about a new indie game called ON that you need to check out and review.

That's stupid, go for the job.

For some surreal reason you decide that, yeah, you actually will, why not.

When you log on to your blog you have a few messages from people, mostly asking if you're going to be a part of the contest, a couple asking how you are in general, and 3 congratulating you on getting a place on the team, which you don't have. Yet.

You decide to go and look up the news coverage like he said, and wow holy shit there's a lot of stuff on it, you skim a few articles, all just wordy versions of what he told you personally, apparently if the Human team wins, then all Humans get access to the game, there's a bunch of theories to who this Anonymia chick really is, and a whole bunch of stuff about the game itself.

You read up about the game, read a few reviews, watch a few gameplay videos, it actually looks really good. Maybe you will go for this; it's something to pass the time at least.

You send twitchy a message:

TG: so yeah tell your boss or whatever that ill go for it

Soon after, you receive a video chat invite from that Gaston guy, you accept it and tell him personally that maybe you are interested, but you can't seem too eager.

He proceeds to tell you everything you need to know about the position, he says you'll get paid for it, and how much, which pretty much has you saying fuck yes, but then he explains that you'll be staying in an assigned apartment with the other four team members, but you can all bring one other person with you for company, which has you a little anxious because that means ten people all in one place. But he expands on the situation, you're not locked up there, it's just easier if you stay because then you can interact with your new team mates in person, but if you're not comfortable you can stay at your own apartment, but you'll have to travel back and forth. He says there are two members already, from a different Space Station called Allon, you've never heard of it.

You've got one week to pack your stuff and ask your bro if he'll go with you, because of course you're going to take him, who else would you take?

Maybe this will be fun.


	5. The Apartment

((Credit to Kai (achtung-minen tumblr) for help with the Human OCs))

Are we still on the space station?

Yes, you are on the Space Station Sough, it is day #18, Month #3, year #201, and your name is Dirk Strider.

You and your brother are on your way to some apartment in the Second Ring for a few days, he's been chosen for a place in a big contest or something, he didn't really explain. He doesn't seem too into the idea of going out, but he was allowed to bring you along, so he's cool.

So this is Dave's infamous brother, hmm?

Whoa, hold up. What do you mean infamous. What's Dave been saying?

Never mind, why don't you tell us about yourself so we can get to know you.

You're not really sure where to start. Well, you suppose you're a pretty cool guy, people have been known to describe you all kindsa ways, not that you spend much time with people. You spend most of your time in your shared apartment, usually alone, but sometimes you hang out with Dave. You had to get your best friend to use her sicknasty hacking skills to get you this apartment though, because you're not even supposed to be on this Space Station, and if anybody up top finds out that you're here, you're not sure what would happen.

Are you some kind of criminal or something?

No nothing like that, you just didn't like where you came from, boring as fuck.

So where are you supposed to be?

The Space Station Jafac, that's where you were born, well not exactly born, you see there's this whole conspiracy going on where they're cloning people-

Hold up, we've heard about this already.

Oh, well that makes this a whole lot easier, basically both you and Dave are clones from the same person, so you're sort of clones of each other, you're just not exactly similar, at all. You were researching it for a while and found out that there were a lot of Clones made, human and Troll, it's all pretty fascinating stuff, but you're pretty sure this isn't the time to discuss this, so where were we?

Well we were talking about you, but it looks like we're here already, wow Dave looks nervous, is he ok?

No, he isn't. He gets nervous around people he doesn't know, then again so do you, maybe that's one of those clone things.

Dave knocks on the door, soon after, a tall figure dressed in black opens it, he smiles and gestures inside. Dave was right, that guy is freaky looking, now that you're in the hallway you can see that he's actually wearing a lot of purple too, he's got two scars slashed across his face, jagged, pointed back horns like lightning bolts and he's a Seadweller, you've never seen one up this close before, they usually spend a lot of time at the Seawater pools and you never go there.

You wonder if the research you did on this guy was enough, he could be a serial killer and you're just waltzing into his apartment like it's no big deal, but you can hear talking and laughing from somewhere inside.

You enter a large room with a few people sat around on big leather couches, they're talking amongst themselves and only two of them look up when you enter, the Troll guy – Gaston was it? – tells you to find somewhere to sit and feel free to talk to people, when the last two arrive there there's going to be formal introductions and everyone's going to tell the group a little bit about themselves, you don't think this includes you as you're only a guest, but maybe it does since you're here for the whole time just like Dave.

You both just sit there in mutual, comfortable silence, until the last guy shows up with his friend and sit down directly across from you.

Gaston's been stood half in the doorway the whole time, talking to someone in the hall you can't see, after showing the last guy in he enters the room with a tall woman behind him, another Troll you notice, her horns are massive and curl around on themselves, if these Space stations weren't built with Trolls in mind so the doorways were huge then she'd definitely have trouble fitting them through. She's wearing what looks to be a dark red lab coat and she's holding a clipboard.

"I suppose you all know Mr Ampora already, so I'll introduce myself", she says, "My name is Lolita Megido. Don't mind me, I'm just here to track your progress. Although if you want to ask anything about the game or what you'll be doing, then feel free to ask Mr Ampora or myself, I'm in charge of Quality Control".

She looks at your host and nods; he nods back, "Alright, in the Spirit, my name is Gaston Ampora. My job here is to teach you the basics of the game, and for those of you who have never used a Rig before, I'll be teaching you that. I was in charge of all the Beta testers back when the game was first created, and now I'm a member of the Tournament board, there are four of us on the Board. I am also an important part of Publicity and Advertising of the Tournaments, and the game itself."

Lolita smiles at one of the girls in the room, directly to her left, "Would you like to start off by telling us about yourself?

"Oh, umm, my name's Lana Sanders, and I'm just here with Sian, I work at a store on the other side of the station, uhh, that's it I guess."

Lolita nods at her, then gestures to the girl next to her, "Just carry on around, let's get to know basics about everybody shall we?"

The next girl nods and fiddles with the hem of her jumper, "My name's Sian Facell, and I work in a bar just over in the next ring out, I do have a VR Rig but I haven't been using it long, I'm still getting used to it, will that be a problem?"

Gaston shakes his head, "Not at all, even if you'd never used one before it would be fine, you were chosen from psychological readouts and reviews, it's all technical stuff that makes perfect sense and the research shows that you'll all get the hang of this very fast, now if that's all, who's next?"

"My name's Stan Walker, I don't work at the moment, I live in the furthest ring with my girlfriend and play Sburb ahellova lot, but on a computer, I don't have VR." He shrugs dismissively and sweeps his gave over you and Dave, you don't like this guy.

He nudges the girl next to him and she looks up from the floor, "Sorry. My name's Yuma. Umm, Yuma Smitson, I'm Stan's girlfriend, I probably won't be around much though because I work a lot."

"I'm Brad Lee, Laurel and I are friends, we're from another Station called Allon, that's where the Trolls come from too. I know two of them, they're all assholes."

Gaston shoots him a disapproving look, "Well we know you don't like them, I suppose that's one of the reasons our boss thought you'd be perfect for this, she's always trying to make trouble". He laughs fondly despite his words and gestures for the next girl to introduce herself.

"Yeah, like Brad said we're from Allon, we came together, as friends. I don't really know many people, and not many people really like Brad at all." She starts giggling and he huffs and crosses his arms in mock annoyance, she seems nice. "anyways, my name is Laurel Best, and I work in a coffee shop back home, just a little place, but I love that you get to meet so many people" she smiles at you expectantly, and you remember that you're next.

You sweep your bangs from your eyes a bit and clear your throat, time to make an awesome impression to show your 'Bro' up.

"Well, my name's Dirk Strider and I'm here with Dave, the pleasure's all yours."

Dave rolls his eyes and sighs, "yeah, I'm Dave. And he's an asshole."

Lolita looks up from her clipboard and raises an eyebrow at him, "Dave-?" she prompts.

"Dave Strider. You may have heard of me actually, I run a blog. I'm a pretty big deal"

Laurel shifts to the edge of her seat more and looks between you both, "So you guys are brothers? You do look alike".

You wonder if the Trolls know, they must do, else the System's covered it up so well that they have no idea, but if it mattered surely you wouldn't be here.

You settle for, "Something like that, sort of adopted brothers I guess."

Gaston informs you that they won't be playing the game until later that evening, so you all talk amongst yourselves. Everyone seems rather friendly and people start to talk to each other and even include both you and Dave, you don't mind.

So what shall we do while everyone gets to know each other?

Let's be someone completely different.

Okay, your name is Gaston Ampora, and wow these kids are lame.

You honestly weren't expecting much, they are only Human after all, but they'll do. Your boss assures you that they'll be able to figure everything out in record time and it should only take you giving them a brief run through of the system and the thought process for the newbies. Lolita is in charge of the translation part, but apparently Laurel and Stan already know some Alternian and Dave's brother is fluent in it so they should be able to figure it out themselves if she isn't around.

You wish your boss gave this job to Xullos, he's better with people, but apparently something came up with the servers and he had to stay behind. He'll be there for the actual match though, he has to be, he's the one who has to make sure nobody's cheating, especially not the Allonian Trolls.

So Gaston, you want to tell us about yourself?

You already told those kids everything you're willing to divulge, nothing personal.

Oh well. Shall we be somebody else?

Certainly. Your name is Lolita Megido, and wow these kids are awesome.

You've been looking forward to this since your boss told you about the job, you've never met Humans before, they're just like Trolls really, most of them seem really nice.

So do you want to tell us about yourself?

Sure, you live on Alternia like Gaston, you've never left planet like him before though, Space Stations sure are cool. But you need to be professional and keep calm, you're representing Her Rightful Anonymia's name after all. As was mentioned, you are in charge of quality control, this includes making sure everything in the game works like it should, and that everybody likes the new maps as they get released. You end up spending a good portion of your working time on the forums checking feedback and complaints, usually the forums are just full of people complaining about hackers or over powered abilities, but sometimes there's the odd genuine problem that needs attention. New maps get released all the time and old ones get taken out of commission, revamped and re-uploaded to the server, so there are a lot of glitches. Usually the old SGR;UB Beta testers get offered to test the maps before they're uploaded but not many of them accept the jobs.

After a few hours, conversation starts to die down and you decide that now would be a good time to introduce everyone to the game, Gaston takes Stan, who hasn't used a VR Rig before, and Sian, who isn't very confident on hers, into the entertainment block first, to show them how it works, and you stay in the sitting block with everyone else. You learn that the Strider brothers both play Sburb together and they're both pretty good by the sounds of it, you wonder why one was chosen but not the other, if they're so similar.

You also learn that Brad and Laurel play a few games together on their Rigs, a few small time games you've heard of and a few you haven't, Dave seems interested in hearing what they thought of them, apparently he writes reviews of 'Indie VR Games' on this famous Blog he's mentioned a few times, you think you'll check it out when you get a chance, it can't be that bad.

After a while Gaston pops his head around the door and calls everyone else through, you follow along and just stand in the back; you watch them set up. The guests stay back, the Strider boy stands next to you, leaning against the wall, you start making small talk with him about SBUR;B to pass time.

Shit let's be Dave.

Now that's more like it. Your name is Dave Strider, and this game is hella sick.

It makes you wish that you were born a Troll, then you would've already played it. If you were good enough to get picked out for this contest thing, maybe you would've even been one of those Beta testers that woman mentioned. You wonder if your game reviews had anything to do with you getting picked, but seeing as that Stan guy hasn't even used a Rig before it probably doesn't.

You're all on the same Rig in a multiplayer game, Gaston had a little scan over the items you got from all your time in SBUR;B and looked pretty impressed, said all your shit was top rate, so you've got an advantage. You're all just playing against Bots at the moment, 5v5. The Bots are so retarded it is unreal, they just stand there and let you stab them and hack off their arms and shit, it's actually pretty fun. You have the most kills, but it doesn't matter, team work and all that bull.

Gaston teaches you how to use your abilities, yours is pretty pointless in a Bot game, all it does is freeze them – and yourself – for two seconds, and they just stand there anyway, but you use it just to get used to it.

It feels weird activating the Effect, it's like reaching out with a phantom limb and wrapping yourself around the enemy's core, engulfing them. Time seems to pass so slowly when you're frozen like that, everything goes still, and you wonder how it looks on the outside. At one point, your Bro taps you on the shoulder to tell you he's going to the bathroom and you actually jump because you were so focused. You never get like that, you've always had no problem keeping in touch with the physical world.

It's kind of scary.

Shall we leave Dave alone with his thought and be one of those other guys now?

No. You will not, now or ever, be 'one of those other guys'.

Shall we be Dirk again?

Dirk's in the bathroom you pervert.

Oh for fucks sake, can we be that Kawaii chick, or whatever it was?

Yes. You are 'Lolita' again, but this time you've sneaked off and are on your Husktop. You're scoping out that guy's Blog. Wow he takes his irony seriously, you thought it was a joke, but you guess, that is the joke? You don't really get it.

You don't think you want to.

So is his Blog any good?

Well, you're not sure. His review section is pretty good, his comics are actually drawn pretty well but they make no sense. And they're slightly pornographic. Other than that it's just pictures of himself and his brother edited with weird, pointless effects and posts about whatever he happens to be doing at the time, he does have a lot of followers though, and he seems to talk to them all, he sounds really nice.

Lolita, You do know that Trolls and Humans aren't all that dissimilar don't you? Aside from the romance barrier, they're practically the same species nowadays, what with everyone living together.

Well you wouldn't really know this, as was mentioned, you've never met Humans before today, so of course they seem alien to you. You never thought they were horrible or anything though, they're just, a different kind of people, and you've heard that there are still some people against Troll/Human relationships, which is sad, but it's going to happen.

You kind of understand why too.

Shall we leave Lolita alone with her thoughts and go be Dirk now?

Fine, you are now Dirk, once again. He's getting pretty tired of your shit you know. You're only being him because Dave's too busy and everyone else is boring.

No it's not like that, you're a just such s cool guy, we can't help ourselves.

Whatever, you're on your phone with a friend from back on your old home Station right now, so you can't really talk to us. But we can hang around here for a while.

Who are you talking to?

You're talking to your friend Roxy, you promised to tell her how things were going with this contest, she knows Trolls who play SGR;UB and she's watched some of them and says it's awesome, you say it's not too bad but you haven't seen much, just Bot games so far.

She's really hoping Dave and his new teammates win this contest so you guys get to play, apparently there is a way you can hack the game and get on, but there's a chance you'll fry your Rig doing it, even she wouldn't risk it and she's the best hacker you know. Apparently the guy in charge of the Servers, is the computer? Or some confusing Troll shit like that.

Once your done telling Roxy what's going on you head back inside, you find that they're actually going head to head now, Dave's doing pretty well, and apparently he's winning. This doesn't surprise you; he is a Strider after all.

Well, he is sort of technically you. In fact you know what? No. Let's not do this again. Fuck whoever decided to make clones, that shit is confusing.

You sit down and watch them on the external monitor, it's easier to see two screens than when there are 5 people playing, it squishes all their HUDs into the corners and one in the middle, Dave's is on the left, you guess they correspond to where they're sitting, it can't be a coincidence.

You watch him run into one of the girls, she has an Ability that makes her enemy half Blind, she uses it but it doesn't really help, Dave uses his Stasis on her to keep her still while her Effect wears off, once it's finished he just drives his sword right through her stomach, you're not even sure why she was so close to him, she's ranged with a Crossbow, maybe she just got unlucky and he found her, you weren't really paying attention.

Four hours later and everyone has the hang of their Avatars and the Rigs, you guess that research was right, fast learners and all that.

Lolita recommends that everyone go to bed early that night, everyone's had a long day and there's been a lot to take in, even for the 'guests' because you're here for moral support and shit and you need to pay attention too, in case your friends need any advice, also you're the only one that can speak fluent Alternian so if anyone needs anything translated and one of those Trolls isn't around you'll have to. You don't really mind that, gives you a reason to actually have learnt it in the first place.

You all get shown to your rooms, you're sharing with Dave, but that's okay. You have separate beds, when you first moved in with him and were waiting for Roxy to fix you up with a bigger apartment, you only had one double bed between you and neither of you wanted to sleep on the couch, it was less awkward than you thought really, Dave's a heavy sleeper and didn't move much, apparently you talked in your sleep sometimes, and kicked him once, but he never really complained, you think he liked the company.

You get your stuff unpacked and go shower before bed.

When you emerge from the bathroom you find Dave's already passed out on his laptop, it's been a long day for you, and you haven't even been doing anything, he must of been exhausted, you take his laptop and go to turn it off, but notice he was halfway through updating his blog, telling everyone about his day, you decided to guess what he was writing and finish it off for him. He probably wouldn't even notice – just think he wrote it then fell asleep – you decide to go and find a random picture online and upload it to his blog with a caption that makes no sense, just so he knows you were on there, and then turn his laptop off.

You get into bed and think about everything that's going to happen while you're here.

This is going to be a long week.

Notes: i should be over my writing block now, i'm so sorry about that! the next chapter will have a lot of gaming action in, i just need my Beta to come over and discuss battle strategies and technical things with me, once that one's uploaded i already have Chapter 7 mostly written, so that should be up the day after, that one also has some Gaming action and a new character or two!

by the way if you guys wanna leave any comments then it'd mean a lot to me, i'm not even sure if many people are reading this but i've gotten a few comments on and it really makes me happy and inspired 3 thank you all so much for reading this so far


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